Thursday, 19 May 2011

A wanted man arrested in a dramatic raid after fleeing to Amsterdam has been jailed for six years.

Sean Devalda, 24, fled Salford for the continent while facing charges connected to a plot to raid a cash van in 2007. After four years at large the Serious Organised Crime Agency tracked him to Spain and then Holland.

In graphic scenes videoed by Dutch police the door was blown off Devalda’s Amsterdam bolthole by an explosive. The property was shelled with smoke bombs before the fugitive was frogmarched out of the building at gunpoint.

The raid on the property – on an island on the outskirts of Amsterdam - followed a European Arrest Warrant being put out on Devalda.

A helicopter hovered over the scene of the swoop, which involved marksmen and police divers in case he tried to leap into nearby water and swim to freedom.

Devalda was extradited back to Britain and later admitted possessing a firearm with intent to commit an offence and conspiracy to rob over a videolink from prison.

He was sentenced to six years after the court heard he played a lesser role in the conspiracy to rob the G4S van, which fell apart after police followed the gang tracking it from its Agecroft depot to Accrington.

Three other men have already been jailed for a total of 25 years.

Judge Roger Thomas QC, sentencing, told Devalda: "Back in the early part of 2007 you joined in a very serious criminal enterprise with some other men a few years older than you.

"The conspiracy to rob you have pleaded guilty to involves you having a balaclava, following a security, cash-in-transit van with a view to it being robbed, and a firearm being in possession of you and your co-conspirators."